Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008

DUMBO: State officials have finally taken the blame for allowing a Civil War–era warehouse on the DUMBO waterfront to fall into such disrepair that a state park had to be closed last month to prevent people from getting conked with bricks. Comments (1)

Bay Ridge: The Constitution can make you healthy. That’s the word over at Bay Ridge’s Appletree Natural Foods shop, which, in the spirit of the presidential primary season, has set aside an entire window for a gigantic display of our nation’s founding document. Comments (11)

Nightlife: We always thought drinking was its own reward, but it turns out Park Slope bar Pacfic Standard thinks we need to be further encouraged, so they are pulling a page from the American Express playbook to show loyal patrons that membership does indeed have its privileges. Comment

Park Slope: A heroic city employee protected 50 people, most of them tykes, in a Prospect Heights playground after two shots were fired in their direction on Jan. 9. He told the harrowing story exclusively to The Brooklyn Paper. Comment

Fort Greene: In a move virtually guaranteed to tarnish town-gown relations, PrattStore — the modernist art supply shop run by the venerable Pratt Institute — has begun offering custom framing, prompting a local merchant to claim that business at her own Myrtle Avenue shop has been devastated. Comments (1)

Crime: A perp posing as a UPS deliveryman gained entrance to a man’s Washington Avenue apartment on Jan. 7 and attempted to force the man to empty his bank account, but the resourceful victim managed to escape after losing only $4. Plus all the other crime news from Fort Greene and Clinton Hill’s 88th Precinct. Comment

Development: A plan to tear down 10 historic houses at the Brooklyn Navy Yard has been put off for months thanks to a decision by federal officials to review the historical integrity of the 150-year-old dilapidated mansions. Comments (4)

Bay Ridge: Twenty-one years after one-way tolling began on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the toll bays on the Brooklyn-bound side of the span will finally be removed. In six more years, that is. Comment

Politics: The City Council is on the verge of requiring electronics manufacturers to pick up their computers, video games and TV sets when consumers are done with them, but the mayor has signaled his opposition on the grounds that the goal, however laudable, is unattainable. Comment

Politics: The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously upheld New York’s “smoke-filled” system of choosing trial judges, setting aside critics’ concerns that political party bosses control the system. Comment

Theater: One World Symphony continues exploring “Contrasts and Controversy” — this season’s theme — with a production of Benjamin Britten’s classic “Peter Grimes: The Divided Self” in Brooklyn Heights’ Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity on Jan. 25. Comments (1)

Atlantic Yards: A state Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed an attempt by 13 of Bruce Ratner’s rent-stabilized tenants to bring their lawsuit against the Atlantic Yards developer to the Court of Appeals — but the tenants’ lawyer promised at least another year’s worth of litigation. Comment

Theater: There are a few truly indestructible plays. And Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days” is one of them. Thus, I felt duly optimistic entering BAM’s Harvey Theater this week to see the latest revival of the existential comedy. Comment

Atlantic Yards: The three-judge federal appeals court overseeing the last remaining legal challenge to Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project will not hear new oral arguments in the wake of the recent recusal by one of the judges. Comment

Atlantic Yards: A Brooklyn federal judge recused himself from a panel that will determine the fate of the most significant legal challenge to the Atlantic Yards development, citing his early support for the 16-skyscraper-and-arena project — and now the plaintiffs want to re-argue the case in front of the replacement judge. Comment

Editorial: Before Bruce Ratner follows up his victory in state Supreme Court by bringing in construction cranes, it’s worth one more attempt to make some sanity of the ongoing misinformation campaign that state officials continue to conduct at Atlantic Yards. Comments (1)

The controversial proposal to put a public middle school in the soon-to-reopen Brooklyn House of Detention was killed on Monday amid outrage after the plan was first reported in The Brooklyn Paper. Comment

Downtown: Here’s a sneak peek at Olafur Eliasson’s “New York City Waterfalls,” which will send water cascading from under the Brooklyn Bridge and three free-standing scaffolds in New York Harbor from July through October. Comments (1)